The American Revolutionary War began when Massachusetts militiamen and
British troops clashed at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Two
months later, a much larger engagement occurred at Bunker Hill in
Boston. The conflict then expanded into a continent-wide war for
independence from Great Britain. Or so we are taught. A closer look at
events in the South in the eighteen months following Lexington and
Concord tells different story. The practice of teaching the
Revolutionary War as one generalized conflict between the American
colonies and Great Britain assumes the South's support for the
Revolutionary War was a foregone conclusion. However, once shots were
fired, it was not certain that the southern colonies would support the
independence movement. What is clear is that both the fledgling American
republic and the British knew that the southern colonies were critical
to any successful prosecution of the war by either side.
In March to Independence: The American Revolution in the Southern
Colonies, 1775-1776, historian Michael Cecere, consulting primary
source documents, examines how Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
and Georgia ended up supporting the colonies to the north, while East
Florida remained within the British sphere. South Carolina, Georgia, and
East Florida all retained their royal governors through the summer of
1775, and no military engagements occurred in any of the southern
colonies in the six months following the battles in Massachusetts. The
situation changed significantly in the fall, however, with armed clashes
in Virginia and South Carolina; by early 1776 the war had spread to all
of the southern colonies except East Florida. Although their march to
independence did not follow the exact route as the colonies to the
north, events in the South pulled the southern colonists in the same
direction, culminating with a united Declaration of Independence on July
4, 1776. This book explores the crucial events in the southern colonies
that led all but East Florida to support the American cause.
